Page 135 of Dukes for Dessert

“Do your best to resist me, to remain unaffected. Do nothing at all, if you are so inclined.”

“But then you won’t be able to make me—”

His hand left her mouth and stole its way beneath her skirts. The fingertip traced the seams of her stockings against her thigh robbing her of the ability to speak. To breathe.

“Doubt me all you dare,” he said darkly against her lips. “But do not rush your satisfaction, my lady. I am eager for the challenge.”

He stole what was left of her sanity with another kiss, this one more ardent and impassioned than before. It drew from her a surprising form of impatience as he unleashed the full force of his seductive prowess upon her unsuspecting, insignificant defenses.

A spin of his tongue accompanied the rasp of his rough finger against the edge of her stockings. A barely-there nip of his teeth drew her attention from the line he traced up her thigh.

When he found the seam of her drawers, she couldn’t tell which of them uttered the deep, needy moan. Though he was gentle and methodical, she could still sense the pace of his heart, hammering with a rhythm as furious as her own.

And then he was there.

One finger, true to his word, stroking through intimate hair and delving into soft, wet flesh.

She liquified beneath his touch, her legs melting further apart, her pulse abandoning its vocation and her lungs emptying of breath. She needed none of it to survive…

Not when the slippery warmth of his hand suffused her with such electric sensation.

With life.

Crooning soft, unintelligible words against her skin between worshipful little kisses, he smoothed his lips over her hairline, her eyes, her nose, her chin, and her cheekbones before dragging his mouth down the sensitized curve of her jaw, igniting erotic sparks of sensation over her entire body.

His leisurely explorations through engorged ruffles of her feminine sex was a turbulent lesson in frustration. Not only had her anxieties fled, she was instantly overtaken by a demanding urgency.

One he apparently seemed inclined to ignore.

“Dear God, but I could do this all day,” he groaned against her ear. “You are so sweet, so slick, so abidingly perfect.”

She couldn’t summon the words to reply. Not only because of what his diabolical finger was doing to her, but because of the deliberate depth of his voice. The gratification she identified in the words and the fervency of his tone.

It was suddenly as if someone else had taken control of her body. For surely, she would not undulate her spine forward, rolling her hips against his finger, seeking the one touch that he couldn’t seem to give her. She was not the sort of woman who squirmed and gasped in wordless, artless physical pleas.

It was only that the aggravating man had touted his skills so adroitly, and all he seemed to be able to do is build some sort of throbbing, arching, aching, almost painful pressure to a fevered pitch.

Sweat bloomed on her body and her spine cracked with her next demanding arch.

“Why?” the question ripped from her dry throat.

He lifted his mouth from her throat. “Why what, my darling?”

“Why won’t you just…” She had no idea what he needed to do. To move, to find that place that throbbed and release it before she screamed.

“Oh, my poor lady, I am being exceedingly cruel. Selfish even.”

“Why?” she whispered again, hating him a little. Wanting him a lot. Needing him more than she liked to admit. Craving what he was doing to her. Among other things.

“Because I didn’t think that you’d come apart so easily…so quickly. I hoped to play for longer…” Upon a reluctant sigh, his clever finger did something that made her entire body jerk before pulling back.

Play? Was this recreation for him? When he was so obviously not the focus of the game, but the arbiter of it… How could he be enjoying it so much?

She rolled her hips in a display beyond the reach of shame. “Please.” The plea escaped on a desperate sound, closer to a whine than she cared to admit.

“This is why you are dangerous,” he growled, as if to himself. “No matter what I want, it seems I am powerless to deny you anything.”

With that, he unleashed an erotic assault upon her sex that appropriated what was left of her dignity. Carnal strokes evoked torturous shivers that built upon themselves until they coalesced into clenching pulses. She cried out. Her arms reaching for him, clutching at his shoulders with helpless claws as wave after wave of unencumbered ecstasy threatened to drag her out into an ocean of lust and languor. Just when she thought the moment might pass, it escalated into another thrilling, soul-searing burst until the sensation became so exquisite, she could no longer distinguish the difference between pleasure and pain.

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